The field of the invention relates generally payment card transaction systems and, more particularly, to network-based methods and systems for securely obtaining, maintaining, and transmitting a digital photograph of a payment card account holder for comparison to a user using the payment card in a transaction.
During a payment card transaction, a customer or user of the card presents to a seller or merchant a payment card, typically a debit or credit card having, e.g., a magnetically encoded strip on its surface, and the card is “swiped” or scanned with another device usually provided by the seller, e.g., a point of sale (POS) device that reads the card to obtain the buyer's identity and account number at an “issuer” institution, such as a bank, credit card company or other service provider, which the buyer wishes to use to pay for the goods or services. The buyer may then be presented with a receipt form that the buyer signs with their signature to authenticate and confirm the transaction.
The buyer may further be required to present some form identification card, such as a driver's license, an identity card, a passport or other device issued by a trusted source that typically includes a photograph of the buyer that the seller can compare with the user of the card at the POS to verify the user's identity. At least some known identification cards are used in such transactions are altered by the user to be fraudulent such that the photograph is not of the true owner of the payment card.